


Petrichor

by lexwing



Series: Second Life [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Gen, Luke is an awesome dad, life after Snoke, old man Luke is the best Luke, parenting in middle age, remembering Rogue One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 07:59:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8971006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lexwing/pseuds/lexwing
Summary: Luke Skywalker reflects on the heroes of Scarif, nearly forty years after their deaths.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s note: I’ve decided I’m in mourning after watching Rogue One, ya’ll. And it’s either write fanfic or read a textbook, so I know what I’m going to do;). The first of several stories I plan on writing for my Second Life series. Some characters were originally introduced in my story Same Time Next Year.

   A soft but steady rain was falling on Theed. 

   It had been a dry summer.  But with the rains here it meant autumn on the planet was officially beginning.

   From where he sat at his desk near the open balcony Luke Skywalker could hear the gurgle and swish of the house’s gutters and downspouts emptying into the gardens, and the murmur of streams of water as they trickled down the stone stairs into the river.  The air was rich with the scent of parched earth grown wet and of green things.

   He rather liked that the Naboo didn’t seem to care for doors or windows.  Instead most buildings boasted deep eaves and overhangs as shelter against whatever precipitation the mild climate might bring them, and wide open balconies and plazas to enjoy when the weather was good. 

   To Luke, that spoke of a people who had a deep, abiding faith in the essential goodness of both their neighbors and their planet.  

   He set aside his data pad for a moment and rubbed his right shoulder.  The ache that had first appeared in his exile on Ach-To was back.  Going without medical care of any kind for fifteen years hadn’t helped the situation. 

   The Resistance doctors had told him that the pain was the beginnings of arthritis, bursitis, and probably several more –itises (all common to human males in their fifties) that Luke couldn’t recall off the top of his head.  For a man who had already lost a hand, had suffered Force lightening burns to most of his body, and had spent most of his years either in hard physical labor or fighting or both, the diagnosis hadn’t been a surprise. 

   His right arm was, after all, his saber arm.

   It always seemed to play up a bit in damp weather, though.

   He glanced back down at the screen. 

   The list of names was green on black.  Jyn Erso.  Chirrut Imwe.  Baze Malbus.  Bodhi Rook.  Cassian Andor, Captain.  Dawa Rigot, Commander.  Taix Cutter, Private…

   Luke studied them, rubbing a hand across his bearded chin.

  Thirty individuals.  That was all.

   He’d never known any of them.  They were all largely forgotten, now, names buried in time. 

   The Rebellion had never been much for record-keeping, partly out of self-protection, and partly because it was a pain in the ass. 

   But it meant that much of what the Rebellion had done, and why it had been done, was already lost. 

   While recovering after the final defeat of Snoke and the fall of the First Order, Luke had had a lot of time to consider both the past and the future. 

   The Jedi had nearly been wiped out three times.  Rey might, in time, rebuild the order, if she decided to do so.  When and if that time came, Rey would need as much information as possible.  So Luke had set out to write down all he had learned about the Jedi.

   He was well aware of the irony.  Darth Vader, had, after all, done everything in his power to wipe as much information about the Jedi as possible out of the universe.

   Luke had also worked over the last three years to make sure that information was in the hands of as many people as possible.  Each section he finished was reproduced in multiples on paper and on thermoplast and sent to every corner of the galaxy.  Should anyone again try to excise knowledge of the Jedi from the universe, they were going to find it much, much more difficult. 

   The Jedi of the Old Republic had valued secrecy, but Luke did not.  It was in part that secrecy, Luke was sure, that had made it so easy for so much to be lost each time the Jedi fell.

   He had no interest in writing about the Rebellion.  Others were doing that.  Wedge Antilles, for example, was working on compiling the definitive history of the Battle of Yavin: he and Luke had been writing back and forth weekly, each sharing what they remembered.

   But in telling the tale of the Sith Lords Darth Sidious and Darth Vader, Luke had reached the point when the Death Star plans had gotten into the hands of the Rebellion.  And that meant reckoning with what had happened on Scarif.

   He just wished they knew more.  Those men and women had saved the Rebellion.  They had saved the galaxy.  Without them, there would have been no Battle of Yavin, no Battle of Endor.  Likely no Luke Skywalker.

   Yet around them there was only silence.

   “Dad?”

   Luke didn’t need to look up to see his seven-year-old daughter standing in the doorway.  He could feel her Force-presence, light and warm.

   “Whatch’ya doing?”  She asked.

   He held out an arm to her.  “Come in, Beru.”

   When she reached the desk she climbed up into his lap.     

   “It figures it would rain when I don’t have to be in school.”  She stared out across the balcony for a moment, and then sighed.  “It’s never going to stop, is it?”

   He laughed softly.  “It will someday.  Tomorrow, maybe.”

   “R2 and I can’t play outside.”

   “I should hope not.  You don’t want R2 getting rust in his circuits, do you?  He’s an old droid now, you know: you need to be gentle with him.”

   She nodded, indignantly.   “I am.”

   He hugged her.  “I know you are.”

   Beru had come to him as a four-year-old, a wounded, traumatized refugee.  She was Force-sensitive, and she’d needed him.     

    He hadn’t set out to become a parent, not at his age.  But here they were, three years later.

   Beru ran one pale green thumb across the data pad’s screen. 

   “Names?  Who are they, Dad?”

   He picked it up and held it closer, so Beru could read it.  “A strike team from the early days of the war.  From what we now called the Battle of Scarif.  Do you remember, I told you about a very brave man named Galen Erso? 

   “He built the first Death Star.  But he was good, so he left a hole.  And you blew it up.”

   Luke couldn’t help but smile at such a succinct, but not inaccurate, summation.

   Beru pointed at the first name on the list.  “’Jyn.’  Is she related to him?”

   “She was his daughter.”

   “Oh.”  She smiled up at him, her lekku quivering slightly with curiosity from under her pink headscarf.  “Are they heroes?  Like you and Aunt Leia?”

   “They are.  But most people don’t remember them, I’m afraid.  It’s taken me a really long time to even put this much together.”

   Beru nodded sagely. 

   Her wide brown eyes, a legacy of her unknown human father, were bright.  Luke had been working on these projects as long as she could remember.  She was already better versed in the history and lore of the galaxy than any child should be.

   “That’s ok, Dad,” she said encouragingly.  “You’ll help people remember.”    

   Luke sat back in his chair. 

   Beru’s future was always in motion: he had no idea yet if she’d grow up to be a Jedi or not.  But at least her path in the Light was clear.  She burned like a tiny, bright star.    

   “You remember why I’m doing all this, right?”  He asked her.

   “Uh huh.”  The child leaned back against him contentedly. 

   “And why is that?”  Luke quizzed.

   “’Because people can die,’” Beru said, echoing back his own words at him.  “’But ideals don’t, and hope doesn’t.’”

   “Very good.”  He dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

   “So this is where the two of you ended up,” Etan Darklighter said as she came into the room.  “I wondered why the house had gotten so quiet.” 

   She paused behind Luke, glancing out at the storm.  “Doesn’t look like it’s going to be letting up today, does it?”

   “Dad’s telling me about the heroes of Scarif,” Beru reported.  “He’s writing down all about them, so we don’t forget them.”

   “What little we know,” Luke corrected gently.

   “Yeah.”  Beru’s teeth worried at her bottom lip for a moment.  “They must have been very brave,” she finally announced.

   Her mother smiled at her.  “Yes.  Yes, they were.” 

   As she spoke his wife laid her hand on Luke’s bad shoulder, glancing at him with a knowing expression.  He could feel her Force-senses probing gently at the knotted muscle, soothing it with the contact.

   Etan was now publicly acknowledged by all as the daughter of Obi-Wan Kenobi.  She even used his surname on occasion.  Her own daughter from a previous relationship, and Luke’s last student, Rey, now carried the Kenobi name with pride.

   For all she was the known daughter of a Jedi master, Etan still preferred to rely on her skills as a mechanic, a pilot, and a former Resistance officer to carry the day. 

   But she had cultivated her Force-sense over the years since their marriage.  The manipulation and sharing of Force energy was one of the only Jedi skills she found genuinely useful.  She had explained to Luke that, to her, it was just another extension of her mechanic’s mind. Being able to intuitively see what was wrong inside an engine, and being able to do the same for an injured body, felt to her like two sides of the same coin.  

   “So, Beru,” Etan continued.  “I just got a comm from Jia’s parents.  After lunch, you are invited to come over and spend the night, if you’d like.”

   Beru sat up very straight.  “Really?”  She glanced up at Luke.  “Can I go, Dad?”

   Jia was a little Gungun girl, and Beru’s best friend in school.  She lived with her diplomat parents and numerous brothers and sisters just down the river.

   “Lunch first,” he told her firmly.  “But yes.”

   “Astral!”  She jumped down from his lap.  “I’m gonna go get my X-wing models.”

   “Remember to keep them away from Jia’s baby brother this time,” Etan reminded her.  “You know how long his little tongue is.   No small parts.”

   “He spit that wing right up last time; his mom said he was fine,” Beru said as she hurried out of the room.  “But I’ll be careful.”

   “Thank you,” Etan called after her.  She leaned against the edge of the desk. 

   Luke glanced at her.  “Better them than us, huh?”

   “You said it, Skywalker; I didn’t,” she replied with a smile.

   On paper Jia and Beru were unlikely friends.  They were the same age, but as a Gungun Jia was already a head taller and was all arms and legs.  Friendly, open, and fiercely loyal, Jia had a way of drawing Beru out of her natural reserve that Luke appreciated. 

   He enjoyed watching them play and laugh and scream and jump on the furniture.  But he would own up to enjoying it even more when they were doing all that in someone else’s house.

   “Are you at a point in the story when you can take a break and have lunch?”  His wife now asked him.

   Luke glanced down at his data pad. 

   “I think so, yes.  I wish we knew more.  It’s not much.  Not much for so many lives lost.  Just names.”

   Etan leaned down, putting her arms around his shoulders.

   “Names are something,” she said, her breath warm against his ear.

   “Hmm.” 

   He closed his eyes again.  Thinking of Galen and Jyn.  Thinking of fathers and daughters, and fathers and sons, and all the generations that spanned across the galaxy, connecting them all as one.

   All in the Force. 

   “It will be enough,” Luke Skywalker finally said.

   “It will have to be enough.”

 

The End


End file.
